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I am so glad that you are here. Welcome to Stepping Out In Faith, I am Kayleigh, but you can learn more about me on the about page or feel free to get in touch.

This is something I felt called to do last year sometime, but I kept putting it off (read being disobedient).

This blog is first and foremost all about God, all glory needs to be given to Him. And second this blog is for all of you. God wants nothing more than to awaken His children and He has such a desire for all of you to come and know just how much He loves you.

I pray that this journey will be one of growth and that God will awaken and stir something within you.

Blessings
Kayleigh

P.S. Stay tuned I will be sharing some of my testimony in the next post.

This is a commandment we all know so well; “Honour your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20 vs 12 NLT).

This scripture has been on mind a lot lately. Honour in the concordance of my Bible states to respect or esteem, and to be quite honest most of the time I do quite well in this area and other times I fail miserably. I love my parents, they’re lovely. They love and honour God, but sometimes I will catch myself saying or thinking something disrespectful and yet, the Bible is so clear, I need to honour my parents. In fact Ephesians 6 vs 1-3 states that this is the first commandment with a promise, “Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do.Honour your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. If you honour your father and mother, things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”*

So, how exactly do we go about honouring our parents; we obey them, we heed their advice.Proverbs 1 vs 8-9 says, ” My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instrcution. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honour around your neck.”*Proverbs 10 vs 1 states, “The proverbs of Solomon: A wise child brings joy to a father; a foolish child brings grief to a mother.”* Proverbs 23 vs 22 says, “Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.”* Colossians 3 vs 20 states, “Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord.”*

Now pleasing God and having His hand of blessing is really important and by obeying your parents, the authority God has placed over you, it allows God to move. God loves when His children are obedient. (see 1 Samuel 15 vs 22).

It’s important to remember that your parents are flawed too, they are also going to make mistakes just like you do, so be gracious, kind and loving when they do. Be quick to forgive them and cherish every single moment you have with them.

It was an early Monday morning and waking up was a struggle, I was groggy from sleep since I had gone to bed so late the night before, and the still small voice whispered, “Do not be ashamed of your story.” and immediately any grogginess was gone. The first thought that popped into my head was what, “I am not ashamed of my story.”, but I knew it was a lie since I had never shared my testimony because I felt such shame.

So now, here we go this is part of my testimony:

I grew up in a really amazing home, I have two older siblings whom I love and adore and I was blessed enough to grow up in a home where my parents love each other. My parents and siblings all love the Lord and I gave my life to the Lord when I was four. However, there is quite a large age difference between myself and my siblings and growing up I somehow got this idea into my head that I was unwanted and unloved, yet God’s word said that He has knit me together in my mother’s womb and every day has been recorded in His book (Psalm 139).

Eventually I started school and after school I would go to an extended family member’s home and there my uncle decided he would touch me in an inappropriate manner, and still to this day there is one very clear day in my mind that I can recall, in which my aunt was going to leave me alone with my uncle and that same still voice said, “Go! Get to your friend’s house.” and so I walked to my friend’s house, even back then God was looking out for me.

A little bit later I changed schools and started attending aftercare and then there was another man who would look for ways to touch me inappropriately and one day in particular when he needed a girl to try on the new school uniform and I just so happened to be the only girl there and he tried to insist on me changing in front of him and when I refused he was so angry, but I held my ground and changed in the bathroom but forgot to check the size of the uniform and this man thought it would be ample opportunity to grope my backside. He was standing so close to me, I was shaking and about ready to burst into tears and I cried out to God to please save me and at that moment my older sibling walked in to pick me up from school, that man immediately sprang away from me as far as he could, soon after that I took all measures to avoid him and a few years later I changed schools once again.

After changing schools once again, I found myself surrounded by lovely people, people who genuinely cared, however at this point I was about to go through puberty and I rejected my femininity while all my friends were celebrating the coming of age. Eventually about two years later, I made peace with being a woman and now I celebrate every bit of it, personally I think being a woman is unbelievably beautiful (I will post about this at a later date).

When I finally made peace with being a woman I started high school and there were a lot of changes in my personal life too at that point, my eldest sibling got married and moved out the house and my grandmother came to stay with us. I started battling with depression and suicidal thoughts, it was odd how everyone thought my life was amazing and yet everyday I would come home and want to end it all, I would lie in bed and cry myself to sleep.

There was one day that I sat on my bedroom floor with a knife in my hand, tears running down my face and I prayed, “Lord, if your plan for my life is better than this. Please show me.” and at that moment my phone beeped; it was a message from my best friend asking me if I was okay, telling me that I am awesome and that said friend loves me so much. God was there, He heard my cry, just as He hears all the cries of your heart. (Please don’t ever take your own life. It’s hard to believe right now, but life will get better. Confide in a good friend, teacher, colleague or pastor and have them pray with you, but please don’t end your life, you still have so much living to do. Ask God to comfort you and He will be there. He loves you so much, so much in fact that He was willing to sacrifice His Son for you.)

Finally, my senior year in high school came and then there was this boy. And I say boy, because really that’s what he was, we shall name this boy Jack. Jack pursued me and pursued me and goodness, was it nice to be wanted. And so despite how much God kept telling me Jack was not right for me, I ignored it and was completely disobedient to that still small voice. My parents had a rule that I wasn’t allowed to date while I was in school but we started dating in secret, (Now, let me just say this; if a man wants to date you and he is unwilling to ask for your parents’ blessing or if you feel uncomfortable letting him meet your parents then that is a red flag; run! Ladies, if a man wants to date you, but it can only be done in secret then he is not the one for you! God is the God of light and anything that has to be kept in darkness (secret) is most definitely not from Him!) So, it’s not difficult to see why the relationship wasn’t God-honouring right from the start, we burned with lust for each other and this was the only basis for our relationship, we were physically attracted to each other. We could make out for hours, but when it came to having an actual conversation there was nothing to talk about, we didn’t have anything in common. Jack wanted to marry me, but I knew that it wouldn’t work, but I kept stringing him along. (Hindsight is 20/20.)

One evening my siblings and I went to see Jesus Culture, they were in town ministering and the Holy Spirit was so tangible in that place, and all I felt was guilt and God whispered that you have to break up with Jack. I argued saying that I love him. (I really didn’t, I now know what love is and can without doubt say that I didn’t love Jack.) After that encounter I reasoned that Jack and I could stay together just as long as we stopped making out, needless to say that it didn’t work. Our school was about to break for the Easter holidays and I avoided going to school the last few days because I didn’t want to be around Jack and well he could pick up something was wrong and confronted me over text and guess what; I broke up with him over a TEXT!! (Unbelievable, I know? I was a horrible person back then.)

The rest of the school year was incredibly awkward and after I graduated my family and I moved cities. And that is when God really captured my attention.

My family and I moved cities after I graduated from high school and at first I hated it. I was so angry, our old town was really the only place I knew, all my friends were there, I was accepted for college there. That was part of my plan, moving didn’t fit into the ten year plan I had for my life, but as always God had different plans, so much bigger and better plans than I could even begin to fathom.

We joined a really wonderful church, a church that felt like family. And all of a sudden, sitting in those chairs every week God began speaking to me. God began working on me, all the sin that was in my life I finally wanted to get rid of it. On the 9th March 2013 something radical happened, I was baptised in the Holy Spirit and a passionate fire for God ignited within me.

I lost contact with friends I had thought would one day be at my wedding and instead forged friendships that have the basis of the love of God and not of the world. God is working on me, moulding me and drawing me closer to Himself each and every day.

Looking back on my life, I can see God’s fingerprints all over it. I am so thankful to God for His grace, mercy and favour. And the same grace that has saved me is available to you too.

Sometimes God takes you to some place which at that moment makes absolutely no sense. You’re ready to just throw the towel in, but honestly, all of the uncomfortable seasons is precisely where change happens. So, I am grateful for every single part of my journey thus far, the good and bad, the beautiful and the ugly, because it has brought me here and I love the life God has given me.

I shared this with you today, so that you can see God is there. I have no idea what has happened to you in your life and where you have been hurt, but God knows. He felt every single pain that you did when someone hurt you instead of protecting you. God was there shouting at whoever hurt you to stop, He was crying out in anguish. God wants you to know there is no shame for you, you are beautiful, flawless and you are His. I have no idea where, when or what kind of mistakes you have made, but I do know that God doesn’t care how far you have run. He still wants you, He still loves you and wants a personal relationship with you.

Abba Father, I bring whoever is reading this right now before Your throne. I want to say thank You for this lovely child of Yours, thank You for letting her/him be with us here on earth. You know all the hurts and pain that your child has undergone, I ask for healing in all of those hurt places and for Your comfort to fall upon Your child right now. May they be set free. Let them experience Your Presence in such a mighty way. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.